I woke up Saturday morning and thought to myself, ‘So, here comes the sun.' It's alright with me.

I have been waiting for a really warm and sunny weekend day for months and months. I have a lot of work to do and weather is always a factor. I didn't realize how hot 80 was until I experienced it on a spring day after a winter full of 50 on warm days. That 30 degree jump is enough to get your attention, that's for sure.

All I wanted to do was hide in the shade and sip a big glass of ice water. Of course, I wasn't doing that. It would have made too much sense. Instead, I was working on my outbuilding again after taking a bit of a hiatus from the whole thing. If four months doesn't classify as a hiatus, I don't know what would.

I have one friend in particular who helps me out on weekends from time to time and he came over to give me some assistance. I put this green insulation board on the walls that I have had for a while. It is the same kind you get to go under vinyl siding. However, when I ran out a little before finishing, I found out that a little pack of it is now more than $25. I bought a few pieces of exterior siding and the insulation and a few other minor things and ended up spending about $165 at the hardware store. Isn't that ridiculous?

I figure by the time I get this building done I might have to tear the house down and move into it. You never know.

I put several windows in my building, well, five to be exact. The framing was all in place and my friend and I were putting in side-to-side bracing to help with the spacing on the studs. Studs are the boards inside your wall that run up and down and usually hold your house up.

At any rate, we were putting in a window and I had to climb outside through the wall, which was just a skeleton at this point. The building is about two feet off the ground, so I had to jump a little to get in or out. My friend was holding the window and I was heading back inside to help him when I nimbly jumped up and found one of the braces. The only bad part about it was that the first part of me that found it was my nose.

It almost knocked me out. The brace was just out of sight and we had been jumping in and out of there for awhile, much longer than the braces had been there. I considered it failure to yield on the part of the brace, but at least someone yielded. My nose yielded up a little blood and a little flesh and a whole lot of pain. Luckily, it was not a life-threatening injury and I was able to return to work after rolling around on the ground for a few minutes. That always makes me feel better. It is times like that when I am most thankful that I am not a carpenter by trade.

The worst part came long after the injury, when everyone was asking for the particulars of how it happened. "Who beat you up?" I heard asked numerous times.

However, it is much better for someone to ask such a question and wait for an answer than it is for some people to simply look at you and make up a story inside their head to go with the injury. I prefer being asked any day to that option, because people usually think the worst.

Earlier on Saturday, the same day that I tried to remove my own nose, one of my friends stopped by with his wife to admire our handiwork. His wife was joking that we looked like the Three Stooges, only there were only two of us. She was watching me try to nail down a piece of siding that had warped and was about eight feet off the ground. Every time I tried to get a nail started, I would either smash my thumb or the nail would go flying. Pretty soon, my friend would flinch every time I swung the hammer, figuring I was getting ready to send a missile in his direction.

Although I am a big fan of the Stooges, I don't think that was meant as a compliment. She also called my friend who was working with me a "toolbelt voyeur," all because his pants slid down a little.

No one ever said construction was supposed to be a fashion show. If it was, toolbelts would come in designer colors with matching hard hats. I don't think I, or the world, is ready for all that. Sometimes it is hard enough just trying to please yourself and not break your ever-loving neck, or nose, as the case may be.

Get more tongue in cheek commentary this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

Email: allnews@ls.net